Sıla's journey with tales
Sıla Topçam is a taleteller, one of the oldest known professions. The taleteller is going to open a fairytale school along with educators from different disciplines. Stating that the tales are shaped by narrators, Sıla says, “Tales are ancient works of hundreds of years. There is a problem if the narrator tells them as weak and in need of being saved. But the real problem is not in the tales, but in the meanings given by the people who tell the tales.”
ZEYNEP PEHLİVAN
İzmir- Travelling without thinking about taboo we are stuck in and other things in the amazing world of tales, discovering new worlds like a voyager… Sıla Topçam takes us to fairy tales and fairytale dreams in a universe having no time. And she continues to invite people from all ages to this special journey.
I talk to Sıla saying tales are not only for children but for adults. We talk about her school project.
“Dreaming is like walking around everywhere”
She graduated from Performing Arts Department at Süleyman Demirel University, Faculty of Fine Arts in 2008. She states that she wasn’t a child who grew up listening to many tales. I am quite surprised to hear this from a woman who has taken the tale into the center of her life. Sıla's interest in tales actually began when her daughter was born. At that time, she reinforced her interest in a sense by writing her master's thesis on "Tale-telling and Preparation Processes in Contemporary Tale-telling". Later, she started to give courses on tale-telling with her team under an organization called “Sıla Tale School”. People from all ages participate in these courses.
“I can actually say that many things have changed in my life after my daughter was born. Tales began to be a part of my life at that time. Before, I was more interested in reading books. When my daughter was born, I began to read children’s literature. At that time, I realized that there is a field called tale-telling. The biggest difference between telling tales and reading books is that telling tales is a communication needs eye contact. During the listening and telling of fairy tales, very strange energy comes out, a different atmosphere occurs. Dreaming is like walking around everywhere. This atmosphere also creates addiction. You say let’s tell a tale, let’s enter that dream world.”
“Telling tales is one of the oldest professions”
Sıla says telling tales is one of the oldest professions and she adds;
“I have organized workshops since 2017. The content of the workshops is actually about writing stories using symbols, rather than using anonymous fairy tales. For example, while my colleague Efe Elmas teaches symbol language, I teach how to tell the tales. I have participated in camps and activities. I designed a process after observing, having training courses, and getting feedback. In the Sıla Fairytale School; an interdisciplinary study has emerged, both theoretical and practical disciplines. We have an intention to find the dream of everyone who attends the school, to guide them in their personal journey.